buildings cinder grey and forbidding in their monolithic functionality, the newer ones iPod white and airy.
For the most part, its business was entirely legitimate, the facilities providing importers and exporters with a tax-free holding area through which goods could be shipped in transit or stored, with duty only being paid when items officially ‘entered’ the country.
The problem, as Tom was explaining to Allegra on the drive down there, lay in the Free Port’s insistence on operating under a similar code of secrecy to the Swiss banking sector. This allowed cargo to be shipped into Switzerland, sold on, and then exported again with only the most cursory official records kept of what was actually being sold or who it was being sold to. Compounding this was Switzerland’s repeated refusal to sign up to the 1970 Unesco Convention on the illicit trade in cultural property. Not to mention the fact that, under Swiss law, stolen goods acquired in good faith became the legal property of the new owner after five years on Swiss soil.
Taken together these three factors had, over the years, established Switzerland’s free ports as a smuggler’s paradise, with disreputable dealers exploiting the system by secretly importing stolen art or looted antiquities, holding them in storage for five years, and then claiming legal ownership.
To their credit, the Swiss government had recently bowed to international pressure and both ratified the Unesco Convention and changed its antiquated ownership laws. But so far the Free Port’s entrenched position at the crossroads of the trade in illicit art and antiques seemed to be holding surprisingly firm. As Faulks’s continuing presence served to prove.
They turned on to La Voie des Traz, the road choked with lorries and vans making deliveries and collections at the different warehouses, fork lifts shuttling between them as they loaded and unloaded with a high-pitched whine. For a moment, Tom was reminded of his drive into Vegas a few nights before, the vast buildings lining both sides of the street like the casinos studding the Strip.
‘There’s Archie and Dom -’ Tom pointed at the two figures waiting in the car park of the warehouse mentioned on the invoice.
‘Everything all right?’ Archie bellowed as they got out.
‘Tom!’ A tearful Dominique tore past him and wrapped her arms around Tom’s neck. ‘I’m so sorry about what happened to…I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah,’ Archie coughed awkwardly, lowering his eyes.
Even now, no one could bring themselves to say Jennifer’s name, he noticed. Afraid of upsetting him. Afraid of what he might do or say.
‘This is Allegra Damico,’ Tom said, turning to introduce her.
She nodded hello, Tom realising from their forced handshakes and awkward greetings that they were all probably feeling a bit uncomfortable. Dom and Archie at Allegra stepping inside their tight little circle, Allegra at being so quickly outnumbered, with only Tom providing the delicate thread that bound them all together.
‘How was Max?’ Archie asked. ‘Still bonkers?’
‘Getting worse,’ Tom sighed. ‘Although we did manage to find out why Santos needs the watches.’
‘They contain small electro-magnets that open some sort of lock,’ Allegra jumped in. ‘Presumably to wherever the painting’s being kept.’
‘Faulks commissioned seven of them,’ Tom continued. ‘So as well as the four we know about, there are three more out there somewhere, which might give us a chance to get to the painting before Santos.’ He glanced sceptically at the squat, square building behind them, its exterior clad in rusting metal sheeting. ‘So, this is it?’
‘It’s scheduled for demolition later in the year,’ Archie nodded. ‘Faulks and a few other tenants who are due to move out at the end of the month are the only people left inside.’
‘He’s got a suite of rooms on the third floor,’ Dominique added. ‘He’s due back at around four for a meeting with Verity Bruce.’
‘The curator of antiquities at the Getty?’ Allegra frowned in surprise. ‘What’s she doing here?’
‘Having lunch at the Perle du Lac any time now and then doing the usual rounds of the major dealers.’
‘How do you…’ Allegra’s question faded away as she saw the phone in Dominique’s hand.
‘We cloned his SIM. I’ve got it set up to mirror his calendar entries and record every call he makes.’
‘Does that mean you know where they’re meeting tonight?’ Tom asked hopefully.
‘The time’s blocked out but there’s no details.’
‘Well, if they’re due back here at four that gives us…just under four hours to get inside, have a look around and get out.’
‘I’ve rented some space on the same floor as Faulks.’ Archie held out a key. ‘Bloke on the desk thought I was loopy, given they’re shutting down, but it’s ours for the next two weeks.’
They signed in, the register suggesting that they were the only people there. The guard was all smiles, the momentary flurry of activity clearly a welcome respite from the silent contemplation of empty CCTV screens. To Archie’s obvious amusement he seemed to take a particular shine to Dominique.
‘You’re well in,’ he grinned as they made their way to the lift.
‘Lucky me.’
‘Archie’s got a point,’ Tom said. ‘Why don’t you stay down here and keep him busy.’
She gave Tom an injured look.
‘Please tell me you’re joking.’
‘Just until we can get inside.’
She glared at Archie, who was trying not to laugh, then turned wearily back towards the reception as they got into the lift.
‘Great,’ she sighed as the doors shut.
A few moments later and they stepped out on to a wide cinder-block corridor that led off left and right. The floor had been painted grey, the evenly spaced neon tubes overhead reflecting in its dull surface every fifteen or so feet. A yellow line ran down its centre, presumably to help the fork-lifts navigate safely along it, although the gouges and marks along the greenwashed walls suggested that it had not been that effective. Steel doors were set into the walls at irregular intervals, the relative distance between them giving some indication as to the size of the room behind each one. As was usual in the Free Port, they were identified only by numbers, not company names.
They followed the signs to corridor twelve and then stopped outside room seventeen.
‘This is it,’ Archie confirmed.
‘You know seventeen is an unlucky number in Italy,’ Allegra observed thoughtfully.
‘Why?’
‘In Roman numerals it’s XVII, which is an anagram of VIXI – I lived. I’m now dead.’
‘She’s a right barrel of laughs, isn’t she?’ Archie gave a flat sigh. ‘Do you do bar mitzvahs too?’
‘Give her a break, Archie,’ Tom warned him sharply. ‘She’s part of this now.’
The offices were secured by three locks – a central one, common to every door, and two heavyduty padlocks that Faulks must have fitted himself at the top and bottom. Working quickly, Tom placed a tension wrench in the lower half of the key hole and placed some light clockwise pressure on it. Then he slipped his pick into the top of the lock and, feeling for each pin, pushed them up out of the way one by one, careful to maintain the torque on the tension wrench so that they wouldn’t drop back down. In little over a minute, all three locks had been released.
Grabbing the handle, Tom fractionally eased the door open and looked along its frame, then shut it again.
‘Alarmed?’ Archie guessed.
‘Contact switch,’ Tom said, glancing up at the camera at the end of the corridor and hoping that Dominique was working her magic.
‘Can’t you get round it?’ Allegra asked.
‘The contact at the top of the door is held shut by a magnet,’ Tom explained. ‘If we open the door, the magnet moves out of range and the switch opens and breaks the circuit. We need another magnet to hold the switch in place while we open the door.’
‘I’ll go and get your gear out the car,’ Archie volunteered.
‘Can’t we just use this?’ Allegra held up D’Arcy’s watch, her eyebrows raised into a question. ‘It’s magnetised, isn’t it?’
